What helped your adhd child get through school and fulfil their potential?

[adhdddd8]

DS is eight and his school doesn’t make him do anything, so (because of his demand avoidance and inability to sit still), is behind where he should be.

He’s a very bright child. I’ve been told this by his school and nursery since he was little. His school has even admitted that they’re failing him and he’s a clever boy.

Which, in turn, makes me feel like I’m failing him too. I was considering getting him a summer tutor but it sounds complicated and expensive.

What did you do to help your adhd child fulfil their potential in life? I am reluctant to medicate such a young child. But it feels like he’ll just drift through until he can leave and then I don’t know what on earth.

Any help would be great!

My DS is 19 and working as a panel beater with day release at college. He is very bright but school was not for him… we had some amazing teachers and some awful ones!

He is happy doing a physical job that uses his technical abilities ( eye for detail is amazing!).

Just keep supporting him to find his path, might not be the one you expected but with you behind him he will find whats right for him…

Honestly, as a teacher, I would say try the medication.

I have worked with many students over the years who just struggled so much in school and it changed completely when they found the correct medication.

It may not help him however I've not yet met a parent who regretted medicating their ADHD child who was struggling and not reaching their full potential.

I think there is two ways of looking at medicating when young. One is your way and the other is to look at how it can support a child who is clearly struggling. The longer it goes on the further a child falls behind. It can help the child to focus by taking away all that background noise & distraction, sit still and participate in class. This means your child starts to learn rather than drift through school.

Ks1/infants:

read every day. No exceptions.

had a computer with lots of phonics and maths games on it and if they wanted to use the computer they could
bought a hundred square poster and letters posted and put it up in their bedroom and we counted each day before bed (I got very bored of this very quickly but they loved it)
Bought lots of games like shut the box or junior monopoly which work on maths skills (and played them regularly)
occasionally I got them to write a diary in the summer. This was a lot of effort!
bought a player to play bedtime stories at night - they loved the Roald Dahl ones.

Medication.

DS1 has been on it since 8 years old and is near the top in most subjects at secondary, having struggled to remain upright in his chair before the age of 8.

Why wouldn’t you medicate? It is literally how you treat ADHD. Would you refuse insulin if he was diabetic?

I also have ADHD (he got it from me!) and I hated the medication - I think that’s why I’m a bit hesitant. But obviously he isn’t me.

Also he feels so young! I thought it might be a good back-pocket option for when he starts secondary. But he’s so far behind now that I worry it all might feel quite late then!

If you medicated your children, was it a small dose? Did any other methods work? Like supplements and diet? We’ve mostly eliminated ultra processed foods, and that helps but we hardly ate them before I became aware, so it’s hard to tell.

I tried diet, routine changes and supplements. We started meds this year and it’s been a huge game changer. Home life is so different and much happier whilst school is seeing gradual inprovement albeit slowly. My DD remained on the lowest dose

Does the school support him with regular movement breaks and physical learning or do they just expect him to sit still?has the senco got a good plan in place that the school sticks with?do they have a sensory room?anything that helps at home that they should do in school id put in to the school day?the school shouldn't just accept it's failing them but be putting in a proper plan to help him thrive?

Medication was absolutely transformational for my dad. She went up between 3 and 5 levels between end of year 10 (unmedicated) predicted GCSE grades and actual GCSE grades 9 months later (she got all 7s, 8s and 9s).

She only stayed on medication for 2.5 years and stopped just before A levels.

Those 2.5 years showed her how incredibly smart she was, gave her the opportunity to learn about how she learns best, and opened the doors to fabulous GCSE and A level results and a place as her first choice university.

She wasn’t diagnosed until mid teens. Looking back, at all her social and impulsivity struggles, if she’d been diagnosed at primary age, I would DEFINITELY have given her the opportunity to be medicated younger.

The thing as you know this is a critical age to get all the foundation learning in and I would be mocking heaven and earth to get that in somehow.

Medication, DC wouldn't be heading to university without it. It has had a life altering effect.

Secondary school helped - more physically moving around the school, more interesting lessons from more than one teacher. We didn't medicate until GCSE years though. Now it's clear he wouldn't have got through A levels without meds.

Medication, an understanding group of teachers, some executive functioning tutoring.

I wish we’d started meds when he was 8, but we left it till he was 10 and all it meant was more years of him feeling like a failure.

I wish ds had been medicated younger. He is catching up now, but how different would things be if he hadnt basically missed primary school?

If he had a heart condition you wouldn't think twice about medication.

Lots of early morning sport helps those who are physically hyper. My Grandson likes the treadmill for indoor running and the peleton bike. My oldest did swim club, two others ice skating early am training multiple am’s per week.
Grandson used meds on school days, as dd concerned about the appetite suppression. But it wears off and homework still wasn’t possible.

I agree medication shouldn't be shunned. You'd give him medicine for anything else so why not this?

At 11, my DS refused medication, he also refused to talk to psychologists. He manages to regulate through physical exercise, he is a teen now and very much an athlete. He trains every day and does weights or some sort of intense exercise when not officially training. If he is getting agitated he does some exercise, it's annoying, he could be doing jump squats at 1am before getting into bed! He has learned to recognise his triggers and manages really well. He is clever and an A student, really competitive about his grades. When he was 8 I would have been delighted if he spent 4 minutes doing homework, the change is unbelievable. Now he is top of the class.

I'd really recommend a private OT assessment. I brought DS2 for other issues and I was amazed how many of the sensory regulation techniques were ones that DS1 had discovered himself. We has so many difficult years with DS1, I often wonder if medication could have made things easier not just for him but for us and siblings too. But I'm grateful now for the person he is too.

Preparing them for a life of entrepreneurship or self employment. Out of all the ADHD adults I know, the happiest and most thriving ones are all self employed. They get to pursue their special interest and set their own working hours. Most prefer to work late into the night and sleep in the next day, and many work while travelling. Many run small businesses doing something they love. The other element of self-employment that fits well with ADHD is the unpredictability. At any moment, an email can drop in with a massive client or commission and living for that dopamine rush pushes people excel in their careers. Sitting in a office doing soulless 9-5 work is really difficult for ADHD people and many don't last for more than a year. They end up drifting from job to job with stretches of travelling in between.

Another thing that nobody wants to say out loud is that many of the happiest ADHD adults are those who married rich or became rich. Having no financial worries takes a massive load away from ND adults. Being able to outsource tasks that cause stress like housework, cleaning, childcare and also being able to regularly partake in experiences that bring joy (travelling, shopping, etc) leads to a far more regulated life. Of course, nobody wants to be seen as a gold digger but there is an increasing movement of awareness on social media that a baseline level of wealth is necessary for ND adults to thrive. Wealthy ND adults have vastly different lives compared to middle class or working class ones. Having money also buffers many of the needs of masking and social anxiety.

During school, it would be important to encourage skills or areas of study that will be lucrative down the line. Making sure a child practises basic hygiene and personal grooming skills is also crucial. Things like brushing teeth, brushing hair, taking daily showers, shaving etc must be non-negotiable.

@Littlefishthat is so great to hear. My y9 dd has her assesment next week.

i keep veering between thinking I hope she gets prescribed meds and they work so she can fulfill her potential and thinking it won’t work.

Medication can be trial and error to get right. It took about 4 months to get my do on the right dose. Don’t give up if the first medication or dose isn’t right. Bear with it!

My DC is 7 and without a diagnosis. I’m assuming meds would be something that would require a diagnosis before a GP would prescribe?

The other thing I would do is severely restrict the use of phones/technology. As it was, dd wasn’t allowed her phone in her room at night until after GCSEs. Social media and phone use was still incredibly damaging for her socially. It contributed to time blindness, risky behaviour, impulsivity etc. We used apps to restrict time and apps, but I would be even more rigorous if I had my time again.

Diagnosis can only be made by a specialist such as a psychiatrist or paediatrician or CAMHS. They are also the only ones who can prescribe.

if this is done through the NHS, GPs may agree to take over regularly providing the prescription, but the service/person who gave the original diagnosis remains the main prescriber and must carry out regular medication reviews. This is called ‘shared care’.

if you choose to go privately for assessment, there is no guarantee that a GP will agree to shared care and in fact, more and more are refusing.

If the GP refuses to do shared care your choices are to go through the process of being reassessed for medication through the NHS, or continuing to pay privately for medication every month. This can cost as much as £150 per month, plus the private prescription cost.

Can you tell me more about adhd symptoms, my childs teacher thinks he has a suspected adhd but she isn’t sure. For example he does his homework, he sits still, he doesnt leave the table during meal times, he can focus but she says sometimes and not all the time she has to ask him to do his work because hes chatting away, she said he was getting up from his seat and walking around but stopped that, said sometimes has to stay behind to finish his work and also she mentioned he gets really upset when someone is mean to him tbh I dont think any of what she said means adhd but now I worry

@Littlefish Really grateful for your response, thank you.

So he struggles with emotional regulation and impulsivity. Both of these can be indications of ADHD, but certainly aren’t always.

Have a look at Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and see whether the descriptors fit with your child.

If an education or medical professional was telling me that they saw signs that my child was struggling, for whatever reason, I would definitely want to explore it further. Children present differently in different environments.